


Comedown

by spacemutineer



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Adrenaline, Alternate Ending, Angst, Episode: s02e13 Dead Reckoning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-23 02:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18145787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacemutineer/pseuds/spacemutineer
Summary: An alternate take on the end of 2x13 Dead Reckoning.Harold was accustomed to the comedown of a rather vast number of drugs by this point in his life. He knew well the dreamy re-emergence of marijuana, the dulled rise from exhaustion of muscle relaxers, the hazy, all too hasty reacquaintance with reality and pain of morphine.But none of them was quite like adrenaline.





	Comedown

**Author's Note:**

> I am coming in late to Person of Interest, but Netflix is a beautiful thing, and so are these characters. This is my first piece for POI.

Harold was accustomed to the comedown of a rather vast number of drugs by this point in his life. He knew well the dreamy re-emergence of marijuana, the dulled rise from exhaustion of muscle relaxers, the hazy, all too hasty reacquaintance with reality and pain of morphine.

But none of them was quite like adrenaline. 

He was still not fully used to this one, with its lasting shakes and repeating burned images, despite now regular dalliances with it in large doses. He held his hands out in front of him and fingers that would not still clenched and released. In his mind they remained clumsily unbuttoning a man's white dress shirt from the front, a first time experience as much as the bomb defusal that followed it was.

He put his head back onto Harold Corvid's pleasantly plush armchair. Corvid was an antiquarian book dealer, an easy identity, and his apartment held a number of comfortable places to read the array of volumes that lined the shelves. These were not his favorites, of course, and certainly not the most valuable, but they were a reasonably impressive collection nonetheless. Certainly passable to any eyes that should chance upon it, as all details must be. 

But Harold would not be reading this night, not fiction. Stark reality awaited him on the coffee table in code. Whatever had been done to the Machine, the drive Reese recovered was the way to know. Somewhere past that surely exceptional encryption lay their next steps forward. In the meantime, it would be work, something to focus on, something _else_. 

A clattering crash from the bathroom got his attention. It was not heavy enough to be a full body losing balance and falling, but it was one that came close, flailed for purchase in a room filled with small loose items, and scattered several about. Harold was all too familiar with that particular set of sounds.

"Mr. Reese?"

No reply. 

"Are you all right?"

Still nothing. And the sink kept running.

Harold rose, groaning softly in the transition. At the door, he tried knocking first.

"Is everything okay in there, Mr. Reese? Do you need something?"

"No, I'm... I'm fine, Finch. Be out after my shower."

There was nothing fine in the voice behind the door. It was weakened, too slow, faintly slurred. Harold felt the hangover of adrenaline fading as some of the hair of the dog that bit him hit his bloodstream.

Well, he had already egregiously ignored John's wishes and sense of propriety for his own good once tonight. Why stop now? 

The knob turned with a click. Reese hadn't locked it. Harold was not sure whether to chalk that up to some small relaxation in the home, or at least safe house, of a trusted compatriot, or to account it to the uncharacteristic forgetfulness of a careful man exhausted past competence and coming down hard from the same neurotransmitters Harold was. Looking inside, he was certain it was the latter.

John was sitting precariously on the edge of the bathtub, blinking and failing to fully catch his breath. The dress shirt Harold had so pointlessly unbuttoned – _should have just torn it open, saved multiple seconds, it came down to seven, just seven_ – lay abandoned and crumpled on the tile along with Reese's undershirt. In their place, John wore only lurid, multicolored bruises and defensive wounds, some fresh, some days old, all alarming.

"It's nothing. Just got a little lightheaded there washing my face. Stood up too quickly. It's been a long couple of days."

"I can see that. I might ask how you have been standing at all."

Sheer willpower, of course, Harold knew that. Reese had willed himself through this and worse before it, far worse. 

But none of that had happened in Harold's own bathroom.

The sound of running water was finally replaced by a leaden quiet underlined by controlled but labored breathing. Were they more conventionally alive, Harold would simply take Reese to the emergency room and feel more certain he'd keep him that way. The man needed x-rays at the very least, and professional assessment to determine the underlying damage.

These, of course, were the logical results of the beating in the prison yard, the staged car crash, and god knows whatever else Stanton had inflicted upon him afterward. Reese was usually nursing something, but plausible internal bleeding was rather a bit beyond the median.

"You need a doctor."

"I need some rest. It looks worse than it is."

"I suppose it must, considering you're not currently drowning in your own collapsed lungs."

The mental imagery came unbidden. 

_Bombs on the outside, bombs on the inside._

"Finch."

The tone was a warning, a scolding, even if the voice was still weaker than Reese's customary silken growl. 

Harold's hands were starting to tremble again. He held one out anyway, hoping John wouldn't notice, knowing that he would. 

"Come on, then. The bedroom is down the hall. Your shower will have to wait until you can stand under your own power for more than a minute or two at a time."

Harold anticipated a debate, or at least a half-hearted negotiation. He received nothing more than a moment's consideration into his eyes followed by a resigned nod. Reese accepted the offered support up to his feet and did not even attempt to walk without leaning - _but never too heavily, John is always careful, even now_ \- on Harold's shoulder. A man with a pronounced limp makes an inferior crutch for a tall, wounded companion. At least they did not have far to go. 

Finally deposited on the bed, Reese looked like a great cut oak that was swaying its last, just about to crack and fall to one side. Harold pulled the blankets open for him to do just that, but John didn't move. 

"I should take the recliner. You'll be stiff if you try to sleep out there."

"I have no expectation of sleeping tonight. Besides, it took quite enough effort just getting you in here. You don't have the energy for a repeat performance all the way across the flat."

"Harold, you have to sleep. You look like hell."

" _I_ look like hell? I am not the one who may have multiple rib fractures."

"Contusions, not fractures. I know the difference. And no, you're the one who ran the stairs to the roof of a twenty-one story building a few hours ago and now has to be aching down to his mended bones."

_Touché._

Harold sighed and dropped himself next to Reese, feeling the weight of his broken body more than he had in years. He stared down at his hands again, his fingers quivering and cold. In his thoughts, they were held out in the black night air, half in surrender, half in scoffing disbelief.

_"What are you going to do? Shoot me?"_

John's voice then, stern but quavering, trying to push away both Harold and his fear as he awaited punishment for his sins.

_"It doesn't concern you."_

John's voice now, soft and tired, guileless. 

"Finch. Thank you."

Harold closed his eyes. 

Wire arteries branched out of a ticking semtex heart that obscured the frail human version of nerve and muscle just behind. The numbers moved as Reese breathed.

_Ten. Nine. Eight._

_Seven._

"Please, don't mention it."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm new to writing for Person of Interest, but I'm an old hand at writing angst and h/c about a difficult, standoffish but emotional on the inside genius and his connection to his brave, ever decent, action inclined partner. If you liked this piece, you might try [my canon Sherlock Holmes stories](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacemutineer/pseuds/spacemutineer/works?fandom_id=105692).
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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